Smart grid portal election
AssigneeCygnus Broadband, Inc.
InventorsKenneth L. Stanwood, Ahmed ElArabawy, David Gell
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A smart node in a local area network, the smart node comprising a first transceiver module for communicating with a plurality of other nodes in the local area network, a second transceiver module for communicating with an access node in a wide area network, and a processor that is configured to establish a connection with at least one neighboring node in the local area network, determine a portal candidate score for the smart node based on at least one node characteristic value, determine if the smart node is acceptable to act as a portal between the local area network and the wide area network, and connect, in the case that the smart node is acceptable to act as a portal, to the access node in the wide area network.
Claims42
A smart node in a local area network, the smart node comprising:
- a first transceiver module configured to communicate with a plurality of other nodes in the local area network;
- a second transceiver module configured to communicate with at least one access node in a wide area network;
- and
- a processor coupled to the first transceiver module and the second transceiver module and configured to:
- establish a connection with at least one neighboring node in the local area network via the first transceiver module,
- determine a portal candidate score for the smart node based at least in part on at least one node characteristic value,
- determine if the smart node is acceptable to act as a portal between the local area network and the wide area network, and
- connect, in the case that the smart node is acceptable to act as a portal between the local area network and the wide area network, to the at least one access node in the wide area network via the second transceiver module.
A method for operating a smart node in a local area network, the method comprising:
- establishing a connection between the smart node and at least one neighboring node in the local area network via a first transceiver module in the smart node;
- determining a portal candidate score for the smart node based at least in part on at least one node characteristic value associated with the smart node;
- determining if the smart node is acceptable to act as a portal between the local area network and a wide area network;
- and
- connecting, in the case that the smart node is acceptable to act as a portal between the local area network and the wide area network, to at least one access node in the wide area network via a second transceiver module in the smart node.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.